Renaissance Trophy Wife

Since I’m OCD, and also love over-planning events, I decided to make favors for the RTBF’s parents’ surprise dinner– in red, black, and white, to coordinate with the invites (quick tutorial on those to follow soon!) .  It was actually easier than I expected, and I think the splash of red will add a nice accent to the table! My idea started off as simple thank-you tags for the favor boxes…  but as you’ll see, morphed into a different project.

This is a great opportunity to introduce one of my favorite crafting tools; the Big Shot. (No, that’s really its name!)  It’s a die cutting machine that allows you to insert various dies or embossing folders, roll them through the machine, and end up with a gorgeous die cut.

Below you see the machine, the top (non-cutting surface) of the die, and the clear cutting plates.  You just put a piece of paper underneath the die you want to cut out, sandwich it between the clear cutting plates, and roll it through the machine.

Ta-da!  Here’s what it looks like after being run through the machine.  The die will cut into the clear plates and make lines; but don’t worry, that’s supposed to happen.  Just rotate the plates so you’re not cutting over the same area all the time.  If you want to cut out a selected part of the die, just run smaller pieces of paper through, like I did for the tags.

When you remove the paper, you’ll have a cutout and a negative piece.  I’m using the negative piece as the tag, but I saved the cutout to glue onto a future card or tag.  No use wasting cute cutouts, right?

This is where I changed my mind.  After making the tags, I thought it’d be a lot cuter if I made an obi band to go completely around the favor box.  Sorry, I don’t have any pics of these on their own, but I basically ran a longer strip of paper through the Big Shot so the “thanks” appeared in the middle.

First I cut the strips of paper to my desired width; a little wider than the die cut.  Then, I took an extra box cut-out and lightly scored the red paper strip at the top and bottom of the front panel, so I could see where to position the paper on the die when cutting.  I’m clearly farther along in this pic, but you can see the score lines pretty well here.

Then I used a Bigz XL die to make the cutout for the box.  The total dimensions of the box cutout are 6″ x 11″, so you can make one per sheet of 8.5″ x 11″ cardstock (or 2 if you buy the more expensive 12″ x 12″ cardstock).  Here’s the die and the box cutout that it makes, both flat and folded slightly.  It looks really complicated but really there’s only one tab to tape down; the one on the far right in the picture.  All the rest of the tabs fold together with no adhesive needed.

I stamped a pattern onto the cardstock (that black edge underneath my hand is a piece of foam, about the same firmness as a mousepad; it helps the stamps get a more even impression on the paper).

Checking the width of the band– I probably stamped closer to the middle than I needed to, and some of the stamping showed through the “thanks” cutout, but I don’t think anyone noticed or really cared.

My super high tech method of drying the boxes on the floor:

The assembly process was pretty easy.  I used my ATG gun loaded with 1/4 inch tape, and first assembled the boxes.  Then I ran tape along the edges of the band, and positioned it where I wanted on the box.  Trim off excess or fold over and tape down to the interior.

I was looking everywhere for retro candy, since that would’ve been a cute nod to the decade in which they got married, but after realizing that express shipping across the country is neither financially or environmentally prudent, I filled the boxes with regular fun-sized mini candy. 5 smaller candies fit perfectly on the bottom, and 2 larger ones were laid on top.

The boxes, assembled and filled:

But I thought the favors needed a little something extra, so I finished them off with a black 1/4 inch satin ribbon.

One last look before being packed up for the restaurant!